# Notes on the History of the Wars of Napoleon I with Germany
# Source: Lenin Miscellany XI, p. 49
# Date: February 1918

The article by Lenin printed below, "Where Is the Error?", is devoted to an analysis of a statement by supporters of revolutionary war, submitted to the Central Committee of the party in connection with the decision of the C.C. on February 23, 1918 to accept the German conditions of peace (see "Protocols of the C.C. of the R.S.-D.R.P. August 1917 — February 1918". State Publishing House, 1929, pp. 247–252). The article is close in content to the article "A Difficult, but Necessary Lesson," published in *Pravda* No. 55, evening edition, February 23 (10 [old style]), 1918 (Works, vol. XXII, pp. 290–295.)

The article is written on four pages in 5/8 format on writing paper and breaks off in mid-sentence after filling the fourth page; it is difficult to establish whether the article was left unfinished or the end of it was lost. It is printed according to the manuscript.

The statement of the "Left Communists" in the C.C., published in *Sotsial-Demokrat* No. 55, February 28 (15 [old style]), 1918, is printed in the appendix according to the text of the "Protocols of the Central Committee of the R.S.-D.R.P." (pp. 295–295).

20. 1316*

WHERE IS THE ERROR?

[February 23–24, 1918]

The most prominent and most responsible opponents of the conclusion of a separate peace on the Brest conditions set forth the substance of their arguments as follows*:

...———————————

Here are presented the most concentrated and most important arguments, set forth almost in the form of a resolution. For convenience in analyzing the arguments, we have numbered each separate proposition.

In examining these arguments, the fundamental error of the authors immediately strikes the eye. They say not a word about the concrete conditions of revolutionary war at the present moment. That which for the supporters of peace is the main and fundamental consideration — namely, the *impossibility* of us waging war *now* — is precisely what they avoid. In response — in response even to *my theses*, well known to the authors since January 8 — purely general considerations are adduced, abstractions, inevitably transforming themselves into *phrase-mongering*. For every general historical consideration applied to a particular case without special analysis of the conditions of precisely that case becomes a phrase.

Take the first proposition. Its entire "salt" consists of reproach, exclamation, declamation, an attempt to "shame" one's opponent, an appeal to feeling. It is as if you are saying: see what bad people you are: imperialists are attacking you, "proclaiming" as their goal the suppression of the proletarian revolution, and you respond by agreeing to conclude peace! But our argument, which is well known to the authors, consists precisely in this — that by rejecting a harsh peace, we are precisely averting the danger of suppression of the proletarian revolution. And this argument of ours is supported (in my theses, for example) by a series of most concrete indications regarding the state of the army, its class composition, etc. The authors have bypassed all that is concrete, and they have arrived at empty phrase-mongering. For if the enemy "proclaims" as its goal the suppression of the revolution, then a poor revolutionary is he who, by choosing a manifestly impossible form of resistance, precisely achieves the transition from "proclamation" to the realization of the enemy's goals.

The second argument: the "reproaches" intensify. You de facto give your consent to peace at the very first onslaught of the enemy... Do the authors seriously believe that this can be convincing to those who since the month of January, long before the "onslaught," analyzed the correlation of forces and the concrete conditions of war at the given moment? Is this not phrase-mongering if one considers a "reproach" to be a reply to an analysis??

Consent to peace under the given conditions, we are told, "is a capitulation of the vanguard of the international proletariat before the international bourgeoisie"¹.

Again, phrase-mongering. General truths are inflated to such an extent that they become false and transform themselves into declamation. The German bourgeoisie is not "international," for the Anglo-French capitalists welcome our refusal to sign peace. "Capitulation," generally speaking, is something bad, but this respectable truth does not resolve each individual proposition, for one can also call capitulation the refusal to give battle under manifestly unfavorable conditions, and such capitulation is the duty of a serious revolutionary. Capitulation, generally speaking, was also the agreement to participate in the Third Duma, the signing of peace with Stolypin, as our "Left" declamators used to say in those days.

That we are the vanguard in the sense of revolutionary initiative is indisputable, but that we should be the vanguard in the sense of military engagement with the forces of advanced imperialism — this*

¹ A quotation from the statement of the Left Communists in the C.C. of the party (see below the following appendix to this document).

Appendix.

TO THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE R.S.-D.R.P.

[To the session of February 23, 1918]

Esteemed Comrades!

In response to the onslaught of German imperialists, who have openly proclaimed as their goal the suppression of the proletarian revolution in Russia, the C.C. of the party has responded by agreeing to conclude peace on those conditions which several days before this were rejected by the Russian delegation in Brest. This consent, given at the very first onslaught of enemies of the proletariat, is a capitulation of the vanguard of the international proletariat before the international bourgeoisie. By demonstrating to the whole world the impotence of the proletarian dictatorship in Russia, it strikes a blow at the cause of the international proletariat, a blow especially cruel at a moment of revolutionary crisis in Western Europe, and at the same time places the Russian revolution outside the international movement. The decision to conclude peace at all costs, adopted under pressure from petty-bourgeois elements and petty-bourgeois moods, inevitably entails the loss by the proletariat of its leading role within Russia itself. The exemptions from the sphere of operation of the economic program of Soviet power which we shall be forced to make in concluding peace with capitalists of German origin will reduce to nothing the work of socialist construction carried out by the proletariat since the October Revolution. The surrender of positions by the proletariat outwardly inevitably prepares the surrender within as well.

We consider that after the seizure of power, after the complete defeat of the last bastions of the bourgeoisie before the proletariat, there necessarily arises the task of developing civil war on an international scale, a task for the fulfillment of which it cannot refrain from any*

* At this point the manuscript breaks off. — Ed.